DENVER, Colo., April 21, 2017 — The increase in the risk from cyberattacks has received significant attention from the research and education (R&E) community and has spurred many campuses to adopt new security controls and implement additional tools to protect their institutions. These risks include:
- ransomware attacks which typically attacks a system or computer with the intent to disrupt or block access to data until a ransom is paid;
- distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that are intended to interfere with the availability of a campus’ network or applications.
“There are always new threats to cybersecurity, and the threats often evolve faster than the safeguards,” said Kim Milford, executive director of the Research and Education Networking Information Sharing and Analysis Center (REN-ISAC), which started in 2002 and coordinates information sharing about computer security threats and countermeasure among higher education institutions. “Through active sharing among the research and education community about the most current threats, we can collectively defend against them by updating our processes and finding safeguards that most effectively protect against those threats.”
Higher education could be susceptible to cyberthreats for many different reasons, but are likely targets due to their computing resources, intellectual property, and vast amount of personal information belonging to their students, faculty, and staff. In 2016, REN-ISAC sent out 67,000 notifications to R&E institutions about potential machines compromised by vulnerability exploits.
Milford will be presenting an annual assessment of the current risks along with practical and operational advice to the research and education community at the 2017 Internet2 Global Summit on Tuesday, April 25 from 4:30 – 5:30 p.m. EST at the Renaissance Downtown Washington, D.C. Hotel.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Interviews are available to members of the media upon request. Reporters interested in obtaining a press badge for the 2017 Global Summit should contact Sara Aly, [email protected]
Read the full press release here.
About Internet2
Internet2 is a non-profit, member-driven advanced technology community founded by the nation’s leading higher education institutions in 1996. Internet2 serves 317 U.S. universities, 70 government agencies, 43 regional and state education networks, and through them supports more than 94,000 community anchor institutions, over 900 InCommon participants, 78 leading corporations working with our community, and more than 60 national research and education network partners representing more than 100 countries.
Internet2 delivers a diverse portfolio of technology solutions that leverages, integrates, and amplifies the strengths of its members and helps support their educational, research and community service missions. Internet2’s core infrastructure components include the nation’s largest and fastest research and education network that was built to deliver advances, customized services that are accessed and secured by the community-developed trust and identity framework.
About REN-ISAC
Established in 2004 as part of the National Council of Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACS), the Research and Education Networking Information Sharing and Analysis Center (REN-ISAC) is a member organization committed to aiding and promoting cybersecurity protection in the research and education (R&E) community. With over 500 member institutions and 1600 active participant, REN-ISAC helps to analyze cybersecurity threat trends and protection techniques that impact R&E. REN-ISAC analyzes this information, along with information provided in publicly available resources such as the Verizon Data Breach Report, and provides the R&E IT professionals with alerts, advisories, ongoing discussions and recommendations to help reduce risks. For more information, visit www.ren-isac.net
Source: Internet2